Infant Rebellion, Sin, and the Judgment of God

I continually run into folks who deny that children are sinners, or that they are accountable for their sins. Most of those people claim that there is an "age of accountability," below which there is no judgment for sin. Yet, when I challenge them to show where the Scriptures say any such thing, the response generally boils down to, "Well, I just know it!"

The amazing thing is that these people will hold on to their assertions, even when confronted with the biblical evidence to the contrary, such as Psalm 51:5 or Psalm 58:3. See here and here. Yet, I will continue my fight with yet one more Bible verse.

"I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel. [Yet] for My name’s sake I [God] defer My anger; for the sake of My praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off" (Isaiah 48:8-9).

This passage is God's speaking to Israel, represented as a collective person. That person, God says, was a rebel from birth. Furthermore, that rebellion, He says, was properly subject to His wrath, though He has chosen to defer it. This deferment is an act of grace, for the sake of His covenantal reputation.

Some will say that, since God is speaking to the whole nation of Israel, this passage doesn't apply to the matter at hand. However, since He is speaking to the nation by analogy to a single person, does not logic require that His analogy also means that what He says would apply to a single person? There could be no analogy if the application didn't go both ways.

This would seem to completely obliterate any case for an age of accountability, because it both calls a newborn a rebel, a form of sin (I Samuel 15:23), and says that the rebellious newborn is properly subject to His wrath. Thus, both assertions of the supporters of infant innocence and the age of accountability are refuted.